Surfboard Gets Jet Upgrades

November 25, 2021 by Bryan Cockfield 6 Comments

Surfing is a fun and exciting sport but a lot of beginners can get discouraged with how little time is spent actually riding waves while learning. Not only are balance and wave selection critical skills that take time to learn, but a majority of time in the water is spent battling crashing waves to get out past the breakers. Many people have attempted to solve this problem through other means than willpower alone, and one of the latest attempts is [Andrew W] with a completely DIY surfboard with custom impeller jet drives.

The surfboard is hand-made by [Andrew W] himself using a few blocks of styrofoam glued together and then cut into a generic surfboard shape. After the rough shaping is done, he cuts out a huge hole in the back of the board for the jet drive. This drive is almost completely built by [Andrew] as well including the impeller pumps themselves which he designed and 3D printed. The pair of impellers are driven by some beefy motors and a robust speed controller that connects wirelessly to a handheld waterproof throttle to hold while surfing. Once everything was secured in the motor box the surfboard was given a final shaping and then glassed. The final touch was an emergency disconnect attached to a leash so that if he falls off the board it doesn’t speed away without him.

The build is impressive not only for [Andrew]’s shaping skills but for his dedication to a custom jet drive for the surfboard. He spent over a year refining the build and actually encourages people not to do this as he thinks it took too much time and effort, but we’re going to have to disagree with him there. Even if you want to try to build something a lot simpler, builds like these look like a lot of fun once they’re finished. The build seems flawless and while he only tested it in a lake we’re excited to see if it holds up surfing real waves in an ocean.

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E-MonoWheel

November 24, 2021 by Matthew Carlson 16 Comments

Generally, monowheels are that wacky, wildly futuristic transport that we lump in the same category as hoverbikes and jetpacks: strange, currently impractical, but very cool. Not content with waiting for the distant future, [Sam Barker] made his own electric monowheel. (Video, embedded below.)

The hardest part of any monowheel is that the outside rim needs to stand enormous abuse. It supports the weight of the vehicle and provides most of the structural integrity, but also is the means of propulsion. [Sam]’s first thought was to use a trampoline frame as it is a round and reasonably sturdy tube steel. He 3D printed the rollers that connected the subframe to the trampoline frame. Flat bar stock was used to make the angles inside the subframe and straight tube steel connected the inner frame into a trapezoid. The trampoline frame was welded together and on the first test spin, it broke apart from the stress. It simply wasn’t strong enough.

Not to be dissuaded, he found a company that bends steel into custom shapes. He stole the e-bike kit from another bike he had converted earlier, and the wheel was turning. Some handles and foot-pedal later, it was time for a proper test drive. Overall, the result is pretty impressive and the double-takes [Sam] gets while riding down streets in town are wonderful. If you’re looking to scratch the monowheel itch, check out this wooden monowheel.

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An electric mini rat rod made from mostly recycled parts.

Electric Mini Rat Rod Starts ‘Em Young

November 19, 2021 by Kristina Panos 4 Comments

These days, a lot of people barely even say hello to their neighbors. But not [dewey302]. They’re so tight with the people next door that they built this bad-ass electric mini rat rod for the neighbors’ five-year-old kid. Talk about community!

Nearly every bit of this rod is recycled — the body is a wheelbarrow, the transaxle is from a mobility scooter, and the frame was welded together from scrap tubing including the wheelbarrow itself, and old bike or two, and some broken lawn chairs. The rear wheels are also from the ‘barrow, though the front ones were purchased (one of few new parts. Power comes from a pair of 18 V tool batteries wired in series and running through the Curtis controller from the scooter. Depending on the weight of the driver, this baby will do 10-12 MPH.

We love the look of this little rat rod, and wish we were [dewey302]’s neighbor. When you’re done poring over the pile of build pictures, be sure to watch [dewey302] and [The Kid] tear up the cul-de-sac in the video after the break.

You may have noticed the mailbox grille. Surprisingly, this is not the first mail-themed rat rod we’ve covered. Here’s one that really delivers.

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For All Their Expense, Electric Cars Are Still The Cheapest

November 16, 2021 by Jenny List 191 Comments

A criticism that we have leveled at the move from internal combustion vehicles to electric ones is that their expense can put them well beyond the range of the not-so-well-heeled motorist. Many of the electric vehicles we’ve seen thus far have been niche models marketed as luxury accessories, and thus come with a specification and list price to match. It’s interesting then to see a European report from LeasePlan looking at vehicle ownership costs which reveals that the total yearly cost of ownership (TCO) for an electric car has is now cheaper that comparable internal combustion vehicles across the whole continent in all but the fiercely competitive sub-compact segment.

TCO includes depreciation, taxes and insurance, fuel, and maintenance. Perhaps the most interesting story lies in electric cars progressing from being a high-depreciation, risky purchase to something you can sell on the second-hand market, even if they cost more up front. For example, the electric VW ID3 costs around $11,000 more than the comparable gas-powered VW Golf up front, but the higher resale price later offsets this and helps keep the TCO lower.

We’ve been following electric vehicles for a while now in the hope that an electric people’s car would surface, and have at times vented our frustration on the matter. It’s encouraging to see this particular trend as we believe it will encourage manufacturers to produce more accessible electric vehicles, especially given that we’ve just complained that driving electric seems like more of a rich man’s game.

(via Heise)

Header image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas / CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Extending An E-Bike Range From Good To Wheelie Good

November 15, 2021 by Matthew Carlson 25 Comments

It may not look like it in some parts of the world, but electric vehicles are gaining more and more market share over traditional forms of transportation. The fastest-growing segment is the e-bike, which some say are growing at 16x the rate of conventional bikes (which have grown at 15% during the pandemic). [Jacques Mattheij] rides an S-Pedelec, which is a sort of cross between a moped and an e-bike. There were a few downsides, and one of those was the pitiful range, which needed to be significantly upgraded.

The S-Pedelec that [Jacques] purchased is technically considered a moped, which means it needs to ride in traffic. The 500 watt-hour battery would only take him 45km (~28 miles) on a good day, which isn’t too bad but a problem if your battery runs down while in traffic, struggling to pedal a big heavy bicycle-like thing at car speed. You can swap batteries quickly, but carrying large unsecured extra batteries is a pain, and you need to stop to change them.

There were a few challenges to adding more batteries. The onboard BMS (battery management system) was incredibly picky with DRM and fussy about how many extra cells he could add. The solution that [Jacques] went with was to add an external balancer. This allowed him to add as many cells as he wanted while keeping the BMS happy. The battery geometry is a little wonky as he wanted to keep the pack within the frame. Putting it over the rear wheel would shift the center of gravity higher, changing the bike’s handling. After significant research and preparation, [Jacques] welded his custom battery back together with a spot welder. The final capacity came in at 2150wh (much better than the initial 500wh). An added benefit of the extra range is the higher speed, as the bike stays in the higher voltage domain for much longer. In eco mode, it can do 500km or 180km at full power.

It’s awe-inspiring, and we’re looking forward to seeing more e-bikes in the future. Maybe one day we’ll have tesla coil wireless e-bikes, but until then, we need to make do with battery packs.

Motorcycle Rally Computer Goes Open Source

November 11, 2021 by Adam Zeloof 6 Comments

Motorcycle rally racing is a high-speed, exciting, off-road motorsport that involves zipping across all types of terrain on two wheels. While riding, it’s extremely important for riders to know what’s coming up next — turns, straightaways, stream crossings, the list goes on. Generally, this is handled by a roadbook — a paper scroll that has diagrams of each turn or course checkpoint, along with the distances between them and any other pertinent information. Of course, this needs to be paired with a readout that tells you how far you’ve traveled since the last waypoint so you’re not just guessing. This readout usually takes the form of a rally computer, a device that can display speed, distance traveled, and course heading (and some of the fancier ones have even more data available).

A roadbook with commercially-available rally computers

Frustrated with the lackluster interface and high cost associated with most rally computers on the market, [Matias Godoy] designed his own back in 2017, and was quick to realize he had a potential product. After several iterations he brought his idea to market with a small initial run, which sold out in a few hours!

He then took some time to reflect on the successful campaign. He decided that rather than continue to churn out units, he would open-source the design to make it available to everybody and see what the community could come up with. He published all of his design files to GitHub, and wrote up a wonderful blog post documenting the entire design process, from inspiration and early prototypes to his decision to go open source.

[Matias]’s project, the Open Rally Computer (formerly the Baja Pro) packages neatly in a CNC-machined case and features a nice high-visibility LCD display, a built-in GPS receiver, and an ergonomic handlebar-mounted remote. The data is crunched by an ESP32 microcontroller, which also allows for WiFi-enabled OTA updates. The end result is a beautiful and useful device that was clearly designed with great care. Love the idea but not a rally racer? If street bikes are more your thing then fear not because there’s an open source digital dashboard out there for you too.

Annoy Yourself Into Better Driving With This Turn Signal Monitor

November 7, 2021 by Dan Maloney 44 Comments

Something like 99% of the people on the road at any given moment will consider themselves an above-average driver, something that’s as statistically impossible as it is easily disproven by casual observation. Drivers make all kinds of mistakes, but perhaps none as annoying and avoidable as failure to use their turn signal. This turn signal monitor aims to fix that, through the judicious use of negative feedback.

Apparently, [Mark Radinovic] feels that he has a predisposition against using his turn signal due to the fact that he drives a BMW. To break him of that habit, one that cost him his first BMW, he attached Arduino Nano 33 BLEs to the steering wheel and the turn signal stalk. The IMUs sense the position of each and send that over Bluetooth to an Arduino Uno WiFi. That in turn talks over USB to a Raspberry Pi, which connects to the car’s stereo via Bluetooth to blare an alarm when the steering wheel is turned but the turn signal remains untouched. The video below shows it in use; while it clearly works, there are a lot of situations where it triggers even though a turn signal isn’t really called for — going around a roundabout, for example, or navigating a sinuous approach to a drive-through window.

While [Mark] clearly built this tongue firmly planted in cheek, we can’t help but think there’s a better way — sniffing the car’s CANbus to determine steering angle and turn signal status comes to mind. This great workshop on CANbus sniffing from last year’s Remoticon would be a great place to start if you’d like a more streamlined solution than [Mark]’s.

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